


now, the storm is coming

by misgivings (orphan_account)



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: Depression, M/M, slightly less sad than all this implies i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-21
Updated: 2012-10-21
Packaged: 2017-11-16 18:02:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/542273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/misgivings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six feet is so much deeper than you realize, so much more when you're looking down into the depths and watching a mother cry on a dim January afternoon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	now, the storm is coming

**Author's Note:**

> One of my friends recently said there wasn't enough of this pairing, so I decided I’d try to write some. I was told to write something cute about them, but, being me, this ended up as something else entirely. Hope you'll give it a chance anyway!

Tommy doesn't know how to dress for a funeral so he mostly lets Kate take care of that. She says something about Armani and he thinks about embarking on a life of crime in some country he's never been to, because there are a few of those and he thinks maybe he could make it in, like, Venezuela or something.

Probably not though, he doesn't have the constitution to make it living on the south side of the equator. Went to Australia once because he's a sucker for accents, and left there just as quick as he came. Sydney was beautiful, but the outback didn't quite make him feel at home, too many stories about deadly creatures, not enough suburbs.

And he's really a suburb kind of guy at heart. Doesn't even know why he's still here, actually. He likes moving fast but he doesn't like other things that do. Not enough wide open spaces, too much pressure to do something and nothing he really wants to do. A dating pool that's only as huge as it is overwhelming.

Besides–

Kate makes him try on the suit three times before the funeral, does a lot of pin sticking and _tsk, tsk_ ing and says, "It looks so much better now," after the final adjustments are made even though he can't see any difference except for that now it's even harder to breathe than it has been for the past two weeks.

She says, "It's okay," when he slumps against the wall and buries his face in his hands, says, "It wasn't–" and he cuts her off by grabbing her wrist and feeling the pulse there, thinking _Thank god, what would I do if–_?

Doesn't finish that thought because he can't bear it.

He watches the hands on clocks move, the way they never go slower or faster no matter what it might seem like and wonders why and how something can be so indifferent. Know he's being overdramatic, because he's never been anything else and that isn't about to change now. He picks out a red tie, one of the only ones he has.

You aren't supposed to wear red ties to funerals he's pretty sure, but people aren't supposed to die when they're twenty-seven either, so fuck it.

He tries to sit in the back with Kate and Eli, tries to be inconspicuous, but it doesn't work, of course.

Rebecca Kaplan looks like she's been crying for two weeks straight, but she still manages to smile at him, and her husband–Tommy can't even remember his name and how awful is that?–claps him on the shoulder, insists he sit up front with family, because that's what he is.

He doesn't cry, doesn't stand up to say anything, just lets Mrs. Kaplan lean against him and smells her perfume. She smells like what a mom is supposed to smell like, probably.

(He tries not to wonder how hard it is for them to see him, for their other kids to see him, for anyone who knew–he tries not to wonder about it, but he does anyway, the feeling sinking into his gut like glass into skin, feelings like blood, hot and sticky, and it hurts and it will heal, but he will always have a scar.)

The funeral procession is long and the drive is quiet. Kate slaps Eli's hands away from the radio more than once. Tommy doesn't blame him. While he's pretty sure no one would appreciate them blasting some song or another, he kind of wishes they could. It'd be, he closes his eyes and thinks about laying down on the backseat, _cathartic_.

None of them say anything when they get to the cemetery, Kate standing between them and pulling them both forward just like she always has.

And Tommy hates how deep the grave is. Six feet is so much more than you realize, so much more when you're looking down into the depths and watching a mother cry on a dim January afternoon.

The coffin is lowered down and Tommy doesn't want to, but he throws a handful of dirt in anyway, listens to the way it _thunk_ s, but turns away as quickly as he can. He doesn't think he'll ever forget that sound.

They all say some words he doesn't understand, some Hebrew or, like, whatever, and he tries and knows it's not good enough as the Kaplans walk by. Mrs. Kaplan reaches out and holds his hand tight for a moment that lasts forever, but is really just a moment, and then they're gone and Tommy's alone because he tells Kate and Eli he'll make his own way home and he stands in the parking lot with his eyes fixed on asphalt, unable (or unwilling) to see anything else.

He isn't even surprised when someone says, "Hey," and is even less surprised when it's Teddy looking at him, dressed all in black and looking like Tommy imagines a shell-shocked person should.

Tommy says, "I can't do this."

And when Teddy replies, "I know," Tommy can tell he means it.

.

They get drinks and it feels just a little disrespectful except for the part where Tommy remembers what they've lost and figures this is probably just something they need to do.

"I keep thinking, like," Teddy says, fingers on the neck of his beer bottle, "this isn't real, you know? Because it's never–not when it's someone like us. It's never _real_. Remember how many times we thought Eli was a goner? And he's still–so why?"

Tommy doesn't know why. He's not sure he'd want to even if the answer was availible. Would it even make him feel any better, to pick an answer out of the air?

"It's stupid trying to find a reason why, though, I know that." Teddy takes a swig of his drink and he's still wearing his ring, Tommy's not sure why that surprises him. Of course he's still wearing the ring. Teddy'd sat at the very front of the synagogue, far removed from everyone else in every possible way, cried like a baby.

Of course.

"There's no reason why," Tommy offers, finally, voice broken and throat dry. He wishes there was something, anything else to say, but all that comes to mind is, "It shouldn't have happened. And it wouldn't have if I'd been a little faster, been a little less scared."

Teddy says, "No," says, "It shouldn't have happened, but it would have no matter what."

The bar is cold and bathed in blue, Teddy looks like death and Tommy feels like it. There's a pool table and jukebox and a bartender with a warm smile and nice curves and Tommy doesn't want anything to do with any of it.

"I haven't cried," Tommy admits. This would be easier if he was drunk. "I might still be in shock."

Teddy replies, "I know I am."

Tommy smooths down his tie against his shirt. He wants he doesn't know what, never has. Some sense of normalcy maybe, but it's been a long time and he's made too many mistakes for that.

Wants–looks across the table to Teddy, to a guy so lost in his own thoughts he probably doesn't even want to be found. Tommy sees a guy who's never asked for much, if anything, a guy who probably would've been just as alone as Tommy himself is if it wasn't for–

But no, no, no, he's not going down that path, not going to start feeling pity for a guy who he knows doesn't want it.

Because Teddy, he goes, "Are you alright?" after maybe five, ten minutes, because that's how Teddy works, asking about you and not thinking about himself. That's how Teddy works, like a machine you put coins in, like clockwork, like he'll never let you down.

"No," Tommy says, realizing it's the truth as soon as the word leaves his mouth.

"Me neither," says Teddy, knocking his beer bottle against Tommy's, which sits untouched.

Tommy finds himself filled with the desire to ask Teddy if he thinks–well, if he thinks they ever will be. If 'alright' is something they can be when all's said and done. If 'alright' was ever in the cards for them, anyway. He's not so sure it was, these days.

Instead he pushes his beer across the table and leans back in the booth, glad at least for someone with whom he can share this crushing weight.

.

He goes over to the Kaplan's place a few days later, lets Kate dress him again. No tailors or ties this time, just a sweater over a button down and nice pants, things he doesn't own but which she's more than glad to dress him in, pulling an outfit from thin air and sending him out with a kiss on the cheek.

The Kaplans are doing as well as can be expected. Mrs. Kaplan looks tinier than he ever thought was possible for her despite being dressed sharp as a tack. She directs him to take the food Kate sent with him into the kitchen. Mr. Kaplan is talking to an older couple, the type who were probably neighbors or co-workers at one point.

"I'm so glad you came, Tommy," Ms. Kaplan says after he's fumbled through where to put the platter of sandwiches and tray of cupcakes, which he now wishes he'd helped make instead of ignoring Kate's three voicemails about it.

She talks to him for half an hour without expecting a word out of him, she shows him pictures and pours him coffee, and then asks if he has any stories of his own.

Kate told him about this, told him it’s important he says a _name_ , that it shows that the person who’s passed is still in your thoughts, but–

“He just, um, he was a really great guy. Probably more than I ever wanted to admit, especially to him.”

–like in the parking lot with Teddy behind him, he _can’t_.

“Oh, Tommy,” is what Mrs. Kaplan says, and he can almost see the psychoanalytical diatribe lying in wait on her tongue, but it never comes. She only reaches out and takes his hand, that one that isn’t holding the coffee he can’t bring himself to drink.

She’s more a mom to him than anyone else, and he realizes in this moment just how old she is, the silver streaks standing out stark against her brown hair, the creases by her eyes that weren’t there ten years ago–as well as just how young she is, far too young to be mourning a son and far too many years during which she will mourn him still.

He leaves the house with a photo album pressed into his hands and instructions to visit more often.

Outside it’s cold and windy, slush more than snow lining New York streets and it seeps into the bottoms of his pant legs where they catch under the soles of his shoes.

He calls Teddy as he makes his way down the street, weaving between other people and tucking the photo album under his arm, fighting the urge to sink to the ground and stay somewhere forever, a fixture in place for people to ignore.

Teddy doesn’t answer, instead he gets a voicemail that makes his skin crawl.

(“ _Hi this is Teddy_!” “ _And this is_ –”)

He stops dead in his tracks and lets his arms fall to his sides. The sweater Kate lent him is just a little too small and his wrists are exposed as a result. A few people bump into him and call him names he’d usually spit at them for, but now he just stands feeling cold all over, plunged into ice, the way memories you don’t want to think about make you feel.

Some person or maybe his imagination says, “ _Walk_ , you idiot.”

But Tommy’s never been one for walking.

So he runs.

.

Teddy’s apartment (that’s all it is now) is a little place in Brooklyn that he can probably barely afford on his own. Tommy still remembers it when it was threadbare and cold, when he’d come over to visit and they’d eat off of paper plates with plastic utensils, because they didn't have a dishwasher and no one had the time or energy to do the job themselves.

He also remembers that the lock is horribly easy to pick, especially if you’ve got physics on your side, and boy does he ever.

When the door swings open and the place is empty he’s surprised at how at home he feels, despite not having visited in years.

He falls asleep on a leather couch that wasn’t there the last time he came around and pretends not to wake up when someone puts a blanket over him, but can’t keep the act up when he smells food being made. That’s always been his weakness.

Teddy says, “Are you five?” as he watches Tommy ease himself on top of one of the counters and pick at cherry tomatoes, keeping his eyes on the steam rising from the pans on the oven.

“I didn’t know you were a housewife,” Tommy replies, and it turns out that Teddy’s cooking isn’t exactly an art but it’s certainly passable.

They don’t talk much, they sit in front of the tv and Teddy insists on watching the news and Tommy doesn’t argue. Some apartment building burnt down on the east side, protesters at an abortion clinic, Captain America wants to remind everyone that while the Avengers are certainly mourning a loss of their own they will not let said loss–

“Do you need somewhere to stay?” Teddy asks at the same time that Tommy goes, “So, I’ll probably get going now.”

It’s left at that.

It’s better that way.

.

The next morning Tommy gets a call from Wanda and that’s how he ends up at the cemetery, hands in his coat pockets and letting himself be hugged by her, smiling over her shoulder at Pietro.

(She’s never been his mom, really, because, even if she doesn’t want him, _Mom_ is the fifty-six year old tax accountant in New Jersey with too-thin blonde hair and a collection of owl figurines, the one who who would run the back of her hand over his forehead when he had a fever and who hasn’t looked at him the same since his first appearance in court, and hasn’t looked at him at all since the ticking time bomb inside his head was triggered in fifth period math class on a Wednesday afternoon–no, this is just Wanda.)

Pietro shakes his hand, like they’re business associates and he guesses, in a way, they are.

“Oh, Tommy,” Wanda says, after a few moments of just standing there, and he knows that she loves him, knows that he loves her too, in the way that he must, but it’s not the _same_ , it never was, and he knows that now. “I wanted to go to the funeral, but I wasn’t sure how his...his parents would feel.”

And Tommy gets that, knows that the Kaplans would not have been outright hostile, but has always known that they harbor some amount of confusion and distrust towards the woman who stands before him, as harmless as she might look in a simple pea coat and plaid scarf, cheeks red from the cold just like anyone else’s.

They talk for a little more, Pietro joking half-heartedly and Wanda squeezing Tommy's hand intermittently, looking at him imploringly.

He doesn’t know what she wants him to do, what anyone wants him to do.

If the Kaplans want a person who knew their son better than they did their are better people out there than Tommy, and if Wanda wants a new favorite (he thinks this, bitterly, and cannot even deny that it’s somewhat true) then perhaps she should have treated him with some amount of favor when he was still a child.

He cannot be a replacement, can only be himself, and he’s sorry that he’s not good enough, but he’s never been one to try to live up to anyone’s standards, not even his own.

Wanda hugs him again, this time even tighter, and he really can’t say that his hands don’t clutch at her back just a little bit, because whatever it is he thinks of her as, she is, at the end of the day, some maternal presence in his life, and he doesn’t want to let her go, but he does. He always does.

He walks away feeling even worse than before, but it’s nothing new.

.

Later he’ll blame it on drinking, but mostly it’s just nerves, calling Teddy up and saying, “You know, I do kind of need that place to stay.”

Home for the past few months (years) has been Kate’s penthouse, because while she’s the type to _want_ to kick his ass into shape she’s never been able to say no to him in anything other than a romantic sense. And though she would argue it, he knows he’s a burden.

When he tells her he’s moving out she hugs him and it’s one of those rare times where she’s not in heels or standing a million feet high anyway, so he leans down and presses his lips to the top of her head because she is everything he could have ever wanted in a friend and he only wishes he was good enough to have treated her how she deserved from the very beginning.

He doesn’t say it to her, but he hopes that she knows that the idea of having caused her any pain or grief over the years weighs on him like a thousand pounds never could.

(There are just–so many things he’s never been able to say, and maybe someday he’ll be able to, but not today.)

He doesn’t have a lot to his name, just clothes he didn’t pay for and things he didn’t buy, books and a laptop and expensive cologne that makes him smell like the person he always thought he’d be by this point in his life.

He’d always thought he’d become something better than what everyone said he would. Thought he’d defy the system, show everyone. Was all about a cocky grin even when he was falling to pieces on the inside.

Now he’s a two-trick superhero who takes and takes and takes.

Teddy’s couch is less comfortable than the queen mattress in the guest room of Kate’s place, but somehow he sleeps better than he has in years.

.

It takes a few weeks before Teddy nudges him one morning and goes, “Get up.”

And Tommy, who’s strictly nocturnal, a creature of the night, replies, “Hrrk.”

Teddy informs him, as he pulls on clothes and shovels something into his mouth that’s supposed to be cereal but tastes suspiciously like cardboard, that he’s got him a job and says, “Don’t mess it up, I’m sticking out my neck for you, and I don’t have to.”

It’s weird how life works out, because ten years ago if you’d have told Tommy that Teddy Altman would be working a desk job, 9 to 5, he’d have laughed. ‘Cause Teddy always seemed like a guy for whom there were a lot of things in the stars, a guy who’d have an office instead of a cubicle or else his own business of some sort by this point.

But instead he does IT work with a group for a fairly large office supply outfit, wears a gold polo shirt for a uniform that clashes horribly with his hair and punches Tommy in the arm when he points that out.

Tommy’s job is menial, it’s making copies and doing supply runs–he never knew people used so many fucking _staples_ –and somehow he gets roped into trying to fix the microwave for the second half of the day, is about to blow the damn thing up when one of the maintenance guys finally gets there and actually thanks him for trying and talks to him about Stouffer dinners for half an hour.

“Good first day?” Teddy asks when they’re driving home, mouth twisted up in that stupid knowing smile.

Tommy scrunches his nose and tries to look indifferent.

“Shut up.”

.

Eli calls on a Saturday morning a month after he’s moved out from Kate’s place and it’s easy to tell that she was the one who got him to call, because even though he and Tommy both have mellowed out over the years as much as their innate personalities will allow they’ve still, neither of them, had a good track record of keeping in touch.

“You’re doing alright, though?” Eli asks as they sit down at the diner they agreed to meet at, one that Tommy’s not sure he’s even ready to be in again. He’s been here with Eli, with all of them, more times than he can count.

Tommy says, “Yeah,” says, “Yeah, yeah,” says it more times than he probably should, and he’s not sure who he’s trying to convince–Eli or himself.

The diner has the best coffee around, so that’s what he gets, coffee and eggs and bacon and he steals a hashed brown from Eli’s plate, takes his coffee black and laughs at every stupid joke that gets said, eats so much and laughs so hard that he feels like he’s going to burst.

These days he rubs the sleep out of his eyes without a second thought, gets to work early and wakes up even earlier, sometimes falls asleep on the ride home.

Eli whistles at that, breaks a piece of toast in half, goes, “Never would have thought, you know?”

“What, that you’d be a motivational speaker and I’d be filling out order sheets to restock our paper supply?”

“Nah.” Eli’s always had the brightest grin of all them, even if he shows it rarely. “That we’d still be dressing in spandex every other weekend on top of all that.”

Tommy doesn’t say anything to that, because it’s been a month and a half since he’s done that, a month and a half since a lot of things.

And Eli isn’t stupid, so he drops it, starts talking about this gala Kate wants to drag him to and how much he doesn’t want to go, and Tommy grins when he knows he’s supposed to, nods when he knows Eli’s expecting it, and listens if only to keep thoughts out of his head that he doesn’t want there.

When he gets home he realizes that he’s started to think of it _as_ home and he stays curled up on the couch and doesn’t move when Teddy sits next to him and they both stay that way for the rest of the day, just sitting and not talking and Tommy wonders if this is how he’s going to feel forever, like a million invisible hands are holding him in place and like he doesn’t even mind if they never let him go.

.

There are days where he feels better, where he laughs during his lunch hour at work and even flirts with the cute IT girl Teddy works with, a redhead with a nice smile and a better right hook, but those days are few and far between and mostly it feels like faking, like he’s lying to everyone and he almost wishes they’d call him out on it.

In the morning he runs a hand through his hair and splashes water on his face like that’s really going to help him make it through the day when he only sleeps for three or four hours every night.

He doesn’t know what to do with his paycheck because Teddy refuses to let him help pay for anything, always says, “Eventually,” and, “Later,” and that time never seems to come.

For now he just puts the money in his savings account and lets it rot there, because there’s nothing he wants or needs for, every cool thing he lusted after when he was eighteen, nineteen, twenty has long lost its appeal.

The whole world feels like that, like a place that isn’t as big as he’d imagined it was when he was kid, and it was always smaller for him than most.

He doesn’t really go anywhere even though he can, doesn’t go to Maui when he starts to wish for warm weather, and doesn’t run to Tijuana when he’s craving some authentic Mexican food. Doesn’t even head to Paris one night when he can’t breathe and all he wants is to see Kate, even though he knows she’d drop everything for him. He knows he can’t ask it of her, not anymore.

He is exactly the personification of a thorn in a person’s side, and he is just waiting for the moment when everyone realizes that they can extract him from their lives and walk away with only a wound that will heal over time.

.

After six months he gets a minimal pay raise and forces Teddy to let him pay for groceries at least, and even manages to pay a few bills before he can be stopped.

It’s one night when they’re eating pizza and wrapped up in a reality show about some family (Tommy isn’t sure which, they all kind of blur together) that Teddy finally says, “So, it’s been a while since we hit the streets, huh?”

And Tommy says, “It has, hasn’t it?”

Patrolling is both easier and harder than it was at sixteen. There are more inhibitions, which means better choices but also less impulsive ones, even where Tommy is concerned. They’re smarter, but sometimes stupid is just better and he misses it in a lot of ways: the freedom being a complete idiot allowed him.

But it feels–if not good, then palatable at least. Like eating a meal for the first time in years, one you used to love, and it’s not bad but there’s nothing special about it, not in the way you remember.

At the end of the night Tommy feels burnt out, not tired, but just _done_. He doesn’t know how some of these guys still do it. Thor, maybe, because Thor’s, like–

(“over a thousand at _least_ , I can’t believe you don’t know this kind of shit, honestly”)

–well, he’s different, but he has to wonder about guys like Tony Stark and women like Captain Marvel. They never seem to be over it, never seem to stop for even a minute.

He mentions it to Teddy and gets a frown in response, gets, “I know what you mean, but it’s just what we do, isn’t it?”

Tommy doesn’t bother pointing out that what Teddy really does is file technical reports and fix router problems in an office building, because he knows that’s not what he means.

And Tommy thinks that he has never felt this exhausted in his life, has run to China and back and barely broken a sweat, and he knows why it is, knows why he spends his days lethargic and nights tossing and turning, knows why he feels more apathy than energy every day, knows it like he knows Kate’s order at Starbucks, thoroughly and intimately.

He says to Teddy, “Yeah.”

Says, “It is.”

Says nothing that he really means.

.

Kate tries to organize group outings for the four of them and everyone always finds something else to do until one night she threatens them with intense, descriptive bodily harm the likes of which she has probably fantasized about before and that’s how they all end up well-dressed and at a play for fuck’s sake.

“This is so Bruce Wayne,” Teddy whispers under his breath when they’ve gotten to their seats in the third row and Tommy snickers into his black bow tie where he’s slouching into his seat.

Kate glares at him and he can practically _feel_ arrows ripping into soft flesh so he bites at his bottom lip and stares straight ahead.

The play is alright, Tommy doesn’t know Shakespeare from whatever other playwrights there even are, so he’s not entirely sure what it is or what’s going on, but there’s plenty of death and enough heaving bosoms to satisfy him.

Teddy and Kate have a passionate discussion about whether or not the two lovers were actually, truly in love (their words, not Tommy’s) while Eli and Tommy talk about the finer points of bow ties, namely how they both never plan on wearing one ever again.

They go out for dinner at a rundown little pizzeria place two blocks from Teddy and Tommy’s apartment. And they have to be quite a sight: Kate licking sauce off her fingers so as not get it on her cocktail dress, Eli unbuttoning the top few buttons of his dress shirt, Tommy rolling the cuffs of his pants up because it’s hot in July, even at midnight, and Teddy apologizing profusely to the guy behind the counter about the whole thing.

Back at the apartment Kate and Eli hog the couch, both of them snoring, Kate demurely, Eli not so much, and Tommy ends up crawling into bed with Teddy without so much as a reservation.

Teddy holds him like he might have held someone just a little over half a year ago.

But it really isn’t worth thinking about, not anymore.

.

Tommy’s never lit torches for people so much as he’s planned elaborate firework displays for them, and he realizes he’s doing exactly that for Teddy one night when they stop at a 7-11 after work.

Teddy says, “You get the Doritos and I’ll get the iced tea,” and Tommy nods and goes to do it without thinking.

That’s probably, he thinks, how you know you’re a little head over heels.

He eats half the bag of Doritos on the ride home and gets cheese powder on the knobs of the radio and Teddy doesn’t even try to murder him, so that’s when he think that’s maybe this situation isn't entirely hopeless, but then again Teddy’s the nicest dickwad he’s ever met so it’s hard to tell.

They watch some show about a guy who teaches idiots how to take care of their stupid dogs and Tommy mumbles, “I want a dog,” and Teddy laughs for about ten minutes at the very idea of Tommy taking care of something that lives and breathes all by himself and after a while Tommy has to laugh, too.

He makes the mistake of trying to kiss Teddy a little, doesn’t even have alcohol as an excuse, just his own stupidity and the leftover remnants of that personality defect where once he gets something in his mind he itches all over until he does something about it.

Teddy lets him lay on him, though, cards his fingers through his hair and doesn’t say much of anything at all, but doesn’t push him away either.

The drive to work the next morning is quiet, but not awkward, and a week later Tommy can safely say they’ve both put it out of their minds when Teddy gets promoted to being the team lead amongst the IT group and they invite Kate and Eli over, pop some champagne, then put that aside and drink some beer.

They sleep together again that night, except this time Teddy puts his back to Tommy, which is probably for the best.

The best, however, doesn’t stop Tommy from pressing his forehead against the back of Teddy’s shoulder in his sleep and tangling their legs together.

After that, he never does go back to the couch.

.

Tommy comes home from getting groceries one night to find Teddy turning the pages of a photo album he forgot he had. It’s a feeling like water spilling out of a broken dam, one you thought would last forever, so much so that you didn't even notice the rising water behind it.

He sets the groceries on the counter and goes to sit on the couch.

“Mrs. Kaplan gave that to me,” he says, voice quiet like it never is, and it’s weird to call her that out loud, because he always called her–well, she said to call her Rebecca, but he never could, she was always just–

“Billy’s mom,” Teddy agrees, with fondness, and Tommy can’t breathe, his face is hot.

Teddy turns the pages and it’s like a book, pictures of them at seventeen, twenty-one, twenty-five, at birthday parties, at the wedding, at nowhere in particular at all. Tommy doesn’t want to look at it, hasn’t looked at it since he got it, since he carried it home with him from the Kaplan’s under his arm.

“He was happy,” Teddy says, like he’s only just realized it.

Tommy wants to say _of course he was, he had_ you, but instead he sniffs, “Duh.”

But this is some sort of revelation for Teddy and he flips through pages, back and forth, for what seems like hours.

“It’s just,” he says, finally looking up, staring over the tv, at nothing really, “I never thought–he wouldn’t want me to be so sad.”

And Tommy hates this, hates the idea of hands reaching beyond the grave to push or pull a person in any direction they so desire.

He says, “Shut up,” darkly, says, “Don’t you dare,” and doesn’t say any of that at all, keeps his mouth shut and pushes the heels of his palms against his closed eyes.

“I’ve felt so lost, you know?” Teddy continues, and Tommy pushes _harder_ willing for it to hurt. “I’ve gotten through it, but I don’t know, I’ve felt so despondent. I’ve pretended not to, but I have. But he wouldn’t want that, would he? Just because _he’s_ gone–”

“No, no, no,” Tommy doesn’t mean to say it out loud but does and Teddy goes silent. Tommy doesn’t know what else to do but continue. “No, that’s all wrong. Why are you letting someone else dictate how you feel? Someone who isn’t even alive?”

Teddy stays quiet.

“It doesn’t _work_ like that,” Tommy hisses, feeling for all the world like a snake lurking underfoot and maybe snakes really aren’t liars at all, are just telling the truth in the harshest way possible. “Just because he’d want you to be happy doesn’t mean you will be.”

There’s Teddy’s hand flat against the small of his back, and there are the tears rolling hot down his cheeks, and it’s only been nine months, it hasn’t even been a year.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be happy again,” he whispers, and he wishes words were like smoke from a candle, rising up and disappearing, forgotten.

Teddy says, “Neither do I,” in a hushed voice like it’s a secret, and it’s stupid, but Tommy laughs a little, a broken sound.

He leans against Teddy, using the sleeves of his shirt to wipe at the edges of his eyes, feels snot coming out of his nose and inhales sharply. He probably looks a mess, but can’t bring himself to care. There’s people down the hall screaming at each other, the sound of things being thrown out into the hallway. Probably Prema in 306 getting rid of another loser boyfriend.

“If you weren’t here, Tommy–” Teddy doesn’t finish the sentence, just lets out a breath of air that sounds almost like a desperate laugh and leaves the words hanging in the air.

“Don’t go trying to sweet talk me,” Tommy sniffs, but he lets Teddy interlace their fingers all the same.

That’s when he realizes Teddy doesn’t wear his ring anymore.

.

"Everything used to be so easy," he says to Kate one night when he’s watching her shoot arrows at a target, hitting the bullseye every time.

"No," she shakes head as she nocks another arrow, "not really, it was just easier to pretend like it was."

She pulls the string of her bow back, breathes in, fingers against her face like a caress, breathes out, and lets go.

.

He keeps busy because it’s the only thing he can keep without losing it.

He makes good on his promise to visit the Kaplans, better late than never, finds that, sad as they still surely are, he’d never know it just by looking at them, and wonders if he’s not the same. Mr. Kaplan gives him a beer and when Tommy confesses he knows next to nothing about football he gets an earful and actually finds it moderately interesting, the downs and the kicks, the whole thing running like a well-oiled machine.

He can always, will always, appreciate a good team.

Mr. Kaplan asserts that he’ll be a Pats fan in no time, says he can’t believe Tommy’s old man didn’t–sees the look on Tommy’s face at that and drops the subject, offers to get another beer.

Tommy makes it his business to visit on Monday nights from there on out.

He doesn’t get promoted at work so much as he gets scoped out by the shipping supervisor who offers him a better job with better pay to work deliveries, and sure he misses that redhead on the IT team, but he feels more like he _belongs_ in the warehouse where when he mentions juvie no one gasps or widens their eyes, they just nod and say they know how it is, and he can tell that they do.

He makes a point of not eating lunch alone, surrounds himself with people and laughs at jokes and tells a few himself, gets comfortable enough after a few weeks that he’ll push some of the guy’s buttons without worrying about what response he might get.

He teams up with Kate more than once because he’s always liked working with her, likes the way she smooths out his rough edges, lets him lean on her when he absolutely needs to and he does the same.

They work together in tandem, trading quips like you only can with someone you know inside and out, a person you could put together from scratch if they ever fell apart.

It takes a while, but one night when all’s said and done and Kate’s pushing her glasses up into her hair, unzipping her boots where she sits on the couch she looks up at him and says, “Oh, Tommy.”

And he hugs her fiercely, pretending like even if she can hear him she won’t know he’s crying if she doesn’t see it with her own eyes.

.

He doesn’t avoid Teddy, just avoids talking to him, feigns sleep on rides to and from work, makes plans more often than not and heads to bed even though he knows he’ll just lie awake, staring at the ceiling until one, two in the morning.

Teddy’s too smart to not notice it, but too nice to confront him about it, and that’s always been Teddy’s problem. It’s the reason why it took him four years to get a promotion he should’ve got in two, it’s the reason why he never outright won a domestic dispute, and it’s the reason why he lets Tommy wallow in it.

Because Tommy’s in deep, like he’s able to breathe underwater but is still succumbing to the pressure of a thousand gallons over his head. Some weekends he doesn’t even get out of bed, and when he does he stays on the couch, drinks just to drink and doesn’t answer his phone. Mostly he doesn’t even know what day of the week it is.

So when Teddy comes to him and drops a six pack onto the coffee table one evening it takes Tommy a minute to realize why.

When he does he just goes, “Fuck,” and nothing else, closes his eyes and feels everything happening all over again–bright lights and a car alarm in the distance and saying, “Shit, shit, shit, can you hear me, please tell you can hear me, please,” the same words over and over again like some sort of prayer to someone he was too scared to name.

Teddy says, “I want to go.” Pauses and shuffles around in that way that’s so Teddy, not nervous, never nervous, just worried, and for a good reason. “To the cemetery, I mean. But not alone.”

And Tommy’s not, no matter what anyone says, that heartless, so he just nods and cracks open a beer, drinks half of it.

“Alright,” he says, “alright.”

It takes fifteen minutes to get to the cemetery by taxi, so they walk instead, because prolonging the inevitable is one of those superpowers they all share and never really talk about. It’s dark and cold, the kind of cold that makes Tommy wish for summer days where sweat rolls down his neck and seeps into the collar of his shirt, even though he knows he’ll be complaining about it then.

They walk under the gated arch, the one that’s never closed up, and past plots that mean nothing to them to the one that means everything and Tommy doesn’t want to be here, has a million other things he could be not doing.

The grave is nice and simple, still looks clean, fresh almost.

There are flowers in the shape of a heart, glowing scarlet and interwoven with dark green stems and blown out tealight candles, the type that smell like nothing in particular. A beat up Thor action figure is leaning against the side of the headstone, toy hammer clenched in plastic fist. It looks like a kid died.

Tommy sometimes thinks that one did.

“I’m always going to be sad about it, aren’t I?” Teddy whispers, and Tommy turns to see that he’s standing a few feet further away, blinking away tears. “I’m always going to miss him.”

“Yeah,” Tommy says, because he realized this a while ago, has just been waiting for Teddy to realize it, too. “You are. It’s okay.”

He holds out his hand, it’s really all he can do.

Teddy walks towards him and takes it.

“It’s okay,” Tommy repeats.

And, it's funny, he's not even lying.

.

Kate has a party for New Years and it’s quiet, nothing big and nothing extravagant, just people they all know and lots of alcohol and music that’s probably a little too loud, but the whole city could be aptly described as such currently, so it’s not like anyone’s making complaints.

Tommy finds himself stuffed into clothes he doesn’t want to wear which seems to be a trend these days, and he thinks he looks ridiculous, jeans with a t-shirt and a blazer, it’s less an outfit and more mismatched pieces of clothing as far as he’s concerned. But Kate says he looks handsome from where she’s sitting with Eli on the couch, and he believes her. How can he not?

He spends half the night catching up with Molly Hayes who’s of drinking age now, but still seems like she might as well be his little sister with the way she sticks out her tongue and rolls her eyes at him, spending more time eating olives than she does sipping at the cocktail she has in her hand.

At one point he thinks she’s reaching out her hand to touch his cheek, but instead she’s going to thread her fingers through his bangs, her brow furrowed as she says, “Do you ever brush your hair?”

He wonders what it is about him that makes people think he’s helpless and decides that it’s probably the fact that he is, a little bit.

The balcony of Kate’s penthouse is abandoned for the most part so he ends up out there at the end of the night, looks down on the city like he has a hundred, thousand times before. It thrums in him, under his skin, the need to get out there and it’s the first time he’s thought that in months, the first time he’s really _wanted_ to get out there, get out of this stupid outfit he’s wearing and get into a stupider one.

He can hear people inside counting down, can hear them outside too, can see sparkling lights in the distance and feel a new year in the air.

Out here he can breathe like he hasn’t been able to since–

A million fireworks go off at once and Tommy stands alone on a balcony feeling a weight lift off his shoulders ever so slightly, and it’s enough.

He feels a hand on his shoulder and he turns around and it’s Teddy, of course it’s Teddy and without thinking (which is a lie, it’s all he’s thought about for what seems like his entire life now) he kisses him like he might die if he doesn’t, back against the railing of the balcony, feeling like he’ll fall a thousand stories down if he backs away, but somehow falling even further the more he leans forward.

He mumbles, “You’re late,” when Teddy pulls away.

Teddy laughs, muses something like, “I don’t think it’s too late for us.”

Tommy feels warm all over, a weightless feeling in the bottom of his stomach, his arms resting around Teddy’s shoulders like they belong there, eyes feeling watery and for a second he worries that he’s going to cry, that all he’ll be able to say will be _I can’t do this_ , but there’s a smile on his face, now, the kind of big and bright one that you just can’t hide and–

Teddy kisses him again and it’s the kind of kiss that feels like a beginning.

–he thinks that maybe, actually, he _can_.

.

So, he does.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is always appreciated. Thanks for reading!


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